Connected lighting systems are a class of lighting systems comprising networked illumination sources (“luminaires”), preferably connected via a wireless network so that the illumination sources are wirelessly controllable. These illumination sources can be controlled from various user interfaces, such as smartphone and tablet applications, via internet services, or via connected physical devices such as sensors and switches. The behaviour that can be assigned to a connected lighting system offers more opportunities than traditional lighting systems. For an end-user it is possible to specify how he wants his lighting system to behave. It is even possible to specify different forms of behaviour at different moments in time. In other words the user is now able to use his lighting system not only for illumination or atmosphere creation but as a way to support or enhance any other activities happing in the home environment or online, e.g. for entertainment, security, notifications, etc.
One of the most common usages of coloured connected lighting is to enhance people's daily activities. For instance, additional functionality now becomes possible in other domains such as smart homes and entertainment. E.g. it is known to add matching dynamic coloured light around a television to enhance the experience of watching TV, movies or other video content. With connected lighting systems becoming more commonplace in the home, these types of immersive experiences can even be obtained without the need to buy a dedicated entertainment lighting system.
A user may use a scripting application to generate his own lighting scenes to accompany a piece of video content when outputted in a space illuminated by a lighting system. The user may be content consumer (i.e. end user), or the user may be a developer who is, say, supplying the lighting script to content consumers e.g. the lighting script may be distributed with the video content to which it relates.
By generating a suitable lighting script, the user can specify specific illumination effects to be rendered by the lighting system at specific times within the video content i.e. relative to visual events in the video content. The lighting script thus defines a sequence of user-customized illumination effects to be rendered by a lighting system as the video content is played out in a space illuminated by the lighting system, thereby rendering the user's desired lighting scene. The lighting script is a computer-implemented data structure, which a lighting controller of the lighting system can use to render the defined sequence of illumination effects synchronously with the outputting of the video content in the illuminated space, by tracking the outputting of the video content in a suitable manner. Lighting scripts are known in the art, as are lighting controllers with the necessary functionality to use them in this manner.